Menu

I sure do have a lot of opinions…

A Love Letter to Terry Pratchett

I just finished reading Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. It’s a Disc World book that’s not about Rincewind or, particularly, wizards, so I quite enjoyed it. (I suppose at some later point, I’ll write about why so many of the Disc World books annoy me but not today!)

I especially like this one because the Night Watch, as opposed to the other Disc World books I’ve read (there are a lot, so I’ve maybe read 10 or so of them but there are still so many to go), played a real part. They were something thieves and general criminals mentioned occasionally in a “Let’s avoid the Night Watch” sort of way. But it’s nice to know that there are some moderately good people in Ankh-Morpork.

My favorite Pratchett books are definitely the Tiffany Aching series though. I really wish there were more of those because I would basically read about Tiffany Aching doing anything. How is she so cool?! (If you know, let me know. I would consider it helpful life advice.) Also the Nac Mac Feegle (who are basically drunk, Scottish Smurfs) should play a larger role in all of Pratchett’s novels.

My only general-Terry-Pratchett complaint that also applies to Night Watch is that there are no chapter breaks! C’mon. It’s over 400 pages long. Give your readers a break. It doesn’t seem like this would be a big deal but I am wholeheartedly against dogearing books and a bookmark just narrows it down to two pages. It’s a minor inconvenience that drives me crazy. Pet peeve, I guess.

PS: For clarification, there is another sci-fi book that was also made into a movie called Night Watch. It’s by Sergei Lukyanenko and distinctly Russian. So these two things are completely unrelated. The movies are excellent. I have not yet read the books, so I cannot vouch for them. But probably they’re better, because that’s the rule.